Harmonization Holy Wars
The standards soldiers are fighting over how well they need to work together...
The wireless world wants to mate multimedia with the higher speeds of third-generation (3G) networks. Indeed, it would be easiest and most cost-effective to implement one 3G wireless standard. But operator economics militate against simplicity, and standards-makers are carving out their 3G turf with political flair.
Add three types of 2G digital networks (GSM, TDMA and CDMA), several 2.5G interim data transport standards and the risk of adding new infrastructure for yet-unknown user demand, and you have standards soldiers shifting between diplomacy and trade war.........
Let's All Get Along, Shall We?
Engineers are at work on network harmonization efforts, which include developing software, coding and equipment upgrades in the core networks to prepare for high-bandwidth multimedia services and developing systems to harmonize two different 3G CDMA operating solutions (W-CDMA and CDMA-2000) that ultimately will "talk" to each other.
In the TDMA camp, the migration to 3G is from IS-136 to GSM/EDGE, which means ANSI-41 is now tied to the GSM air interface.
The GSM Association, Universal Wireless Communications Consortium (UWCC), European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), CDMA Development Group, (CDG), International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) all have roots in different continental and networking camps. The 3GPP is hammering out specs for the launch of 3G services in 2000 and 2001 in Japan and Europe, respectively. The primary standard, IMT-2000,contains specs for narrowband and wideband CDMA and TDMA. Because of support from the GSM community 'which vastly outnumbers the other subscriber camps 'W-CDMA is expected to be the 3G standard by which all other proposals are measured.
"What a lot of people miss is all the work going on in the network side to resolve 3G issues. There's a tremendous amount of standardization required," says Brian Kiernan, senior vice president at InterDigital Corp., maker of chipsets for advanced 3G systems.
Standardization involves worldwide network modifications that mate different global air interfaces with core networks. Moreover, the global ITU standard for W-CDMA accounts for different modes of operation.
"For example," explains Kiernan, "W-CDMA has both a frequency division duplex [FDD] mode and a time division duplex mode. Beyond that, you have another version of CDMA - multichannel CDMA, known as CDMA-2000, which is an FDD standard only." CDMA-2000 also promises full 3G capability, including IMT-2000 interoperability and 2 Mbps data rates.
[My note: QCOM is adamant that 3G CDMA2000 (FDD) or WCDMA (FDD and TDD) requires a license with the highly controversial patent-one-patent-all provisions. Nokia is working with IDC on a TDD version of WCDMA using key elements of BCDMA, IDC's trademarked version of CDMA which is a FDD technology. Nokia is equally adamant that it doesn't need QCOM's technology to implement the TDD version of WCDMA. QCOM paid $5.5 million to IDC in 1994 in a cross-licensing agreement involving 5 IDC CDMA patents for IS-95-type use ONLY and for use under 10 MHz. In return, IDC received the license to use 1 QCOM CDMA patent royalty-free. IDC has consistently claimed that it doesn't need that royalty-free QCOM patent to implement B-CDMA or WCDMA.]
In the TDMA world, "there is now DECT for short-range operations and F-TDMA, an evolution of IS-136, which is fundamentally the new GSM/EDGE air interface standard," continues Kiernan. EDGE is considered 2.5G 'a mobility standard that AT&T Wireless and other TDMA/GSM operators are planning to implement in North America. EDGE is based on GSM packet data' actually, GPRS with a new modulation scheme.
And that's not all. "You have two separate mobile networks, ANSI-41 [which supports CDMA and TDMA IS-136 networks] and GSM, and there's an immense amount of work required to provide seamless roaming and 3G on both," notes Kiernan.
The Race of the Acronyms
The GSM alliance and ANSI-41 committee have agreed to make the two principal networks interoperate.
In the TDMA camp, the migration path to 3G is from IS-136 to GSM/EDGE, according to Kiernan. "What that means is that the ANSI-41 network will be tied to the GSM air interface, and that's very different from before," he says. "If someone with a GSM phone is running from Europe to the U.S., he doesn't have to tie into our ANSI network [using a North American IS-136 phone]; he can tie into the ANSI network through the EDGE air interface [using the GSM phone].
The power of GSM and its loyal followers have given its heir apparent, W-CDMA, an international edge.
"Through ANSI-41 EDGE," adds Kiernan, "you add roaming capability to anyone who is GSM-enabled, so in effect it's a worldwide, ubiquitous TDMA network. Once you?ve got the GSM air interface/EDGE mated to the ANSI network, you've already accomplished about 90% of the W-CDMA network interface. That's another possible migration path......"
.....Indeed, GSM still dominates the global market. There are 250 million GSM subscribers worldwide and 10 million subscribers are added every month. Compare that with only 45 million CDMA subscribers, most of which are in North and South America, and Korea; and 30 million TDMA subscribers, 17 million in North America and 10.9 million in Latin America.
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